Ontario Weeds: Wild garlic
Table of Contents
- Name
- Other Names
- Family
- General Description
- Stems and Roots
- Flowers and Fruit
- Habitat
- Similar Species
- Related Links
Name: Wild garlic, Allium vineale
L.,
Other Names: ail des vignes, Field garlic,
Scallions, Wild onion
Family: Lily Family (Liliaceae)
General Description: Perennial, reproducing
by seed and by 3 kinds of bulbs.
Photos and Pictures
Wild garlic (left to right - base of mature plant, hard-shelled bulbs,
young plants, germinated bulblets, aerial bulblets, (top, right) kernels
of wheat).
Wild garlic. A. Base of plant. B. Top of plant. C. Hard-shelled
bulbs. D. Aerial bulblet.
Stems & Roots: Young plants very
grass-like in appearance with erect, slender, rounded or flattened,
smooth-textured leaves; flowering stems erect, mostly unbranched,
30-100cm (12-40in.) high, round, solid or sometimes hollow; stem leaves
with a tubular sheath and long slender blades; the blades channeled
or flattened near the base, thicker and nearly round towards the tip.
Flowers & Fruit: Flowers in a head-like
cluster (umbels) at the tip of the stem, each cluster at first surrounded
by a papery bract or spathe; each flower with 6 small petals, greenish
to white, pink or purplish-red, 6 stamens and 1 pistil, but usually
most or all flowers replaced by small bulblets; bulblets about 3-5mm
(1/8-1/5in.) long and closely resembling but much smaller than the
bulbs normally produced in the base of the plant. Base of plant usually
producing 2 kinds of bulbs, a soft-shelled bulb that is teardrop-shaped,
usually 8-17mm (1/3-2/3in.) long and white, and hard-shelled bulbs
which are light brownish, about the same size but distinctly flattened
on 1 side and with a thick, hard shell. The whole plant has a very
strong garlic odour. The flower or bulblet heads are produced during
July and August and when growing in fields of wheat, oats or barley,
may be harvested with the grain. They shatter readily into individual
bulblets that cannot easily be separated from the cereal grain because
of their size and shape.
Habitat: Wild garlic occurs only in
the Niagara peninsula of southern Ontario, growing in fields, vineyards,
roadsides and edges of woods. Other kinds of Wild onion also grow
in Ontario but their aerial bulblets, if produced at all, are two
to three times larger than those of Wild garlic, and hardshelled bulbs
are rarely produced in the bases of these plants.
Similar Species: It is distinguished by
its slender erect stems and leaves, its soft, smooth texture, its
cluster of little bulblets instead of flowers at the tips of stems,
its hard-shelled bulbs produced around the mother bulb in the ground,
and the strong garlic odour in all parts of the plant.
Related Links
... on general Weed
topics
... on weed identification, order OMAFRA Publication 505: Ontario Weeds
... on weed control, order OMAFRA Publication 75: Guide To Weed Control
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